Widgets in Smartstore are provided by plugins and render certain output or even invisible content like scripts into the frontend of your shop. Widgets are a public representation of a plugin with which your customers can interact. The areas where widgets are displayed are specified in the plugin depending on the purpose of the widget (e.g. scripts have to be rendered in the head section of an HTML document). Examples of widgets are analytics tools or seals of approval. You can activate and configure widgets by navigating to CMS > Widgets. With the button Activate/Deactivate, you can turn the widget and thereby the public display in your shop on or off. The Configure button takes you to the configuration area of the corresponding plugin. If there are multiple widgets defined for the same Widget Zone, they will be displayed in the order they are shown in the backend. You can define a different display order by arranging the widgets in the backend via Drag & Drop.
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Widget zones are placeholders that allow you to inject the output of widgets and HTML blocks anywhere in your shop. Every single building block in Smartstore is richly populated with widget zones, enabling you to have maximum freedom to place the output of a widget anywhere you like, even though many widgets determine the widget zone in which they need to be rendered by themselves. You can also use widget zones to place your own HTML content anywhere you want in the shop. For more information about placing your own HTML content anywhere in your shop, read the topic Managing Pages & Topics. For more information about widget zones and a complete list of all widget zones, read the topic Widget Zones .